Help with Mass Storage For Working With Video Files

[Jordan Orberg]

Okay -I know you guys are the experts so I hopefully will get a pretty straight forward answer! I'm looking for a better way to work with my video files. Right now, I am editing my footage off of 2 500 gig hard drives with no RAID system whatsoever.

I am looking to expand my storage because.....well you guys know that 1tb can go SUPER fast!! I would like to purchase some kind of external RAID array because I know that it will be faster, and I won't have to worry about losing my files before I archive them!! I am leaning toward a couple products, but wanted to see what you guys thought. I am trying to stay under 600 bucks if possible. Here's what I've looked at so far:

Newegg.com - MicroNet SR4 SR42000E 2TB 7200 RPM eSATA External Hard Drive with 2-port PCI-Express Card - External Hard Drives

Newegg.com - Cavalry CADA002SA4 2TB 7200 RPM RAID eSATA Personal Disk Array - External Hard Drives

I like these because I can always put different drives in if I decide to expand....and after storage gets even cheaper, I can pop some bigger drives in! Also - ESATA I've heard is a MUST if I'm going to be working off of this drive.

Here is a rundown of what I have and what I'll be using it for:
- Editing HDV Video Files in Premiere Pro CS3 and creating Motion Graphics in After Effects
- System Specs:
Intel Q6600 + eVGA 680i Motherboard + 4 gigs of Ram + 750Watt PSU + 160gig Raptor Drive for OS and Programs + 2 x 500 gig Hard Drives for Storage

I would prefer the solution to be an external one because I don't want to keep shoving things into my case!! Can anyone help me find something that would work for me?

[Mike Bisom]

I have no experience with either of those enclosures or cards. I am a mac Gurus guy:

MacGurus:Burly Port Multiplier SATA Enclosures

Which work in PC's or Mac's. My next drive tower will most certainly be a tray-less unit. I do want to chime in that none of the outlined solutions provide a hardware RAID, only a software RAID and there is no speed benefit to a software RAID. I know RAIDs are all the rage right now but for the typical user they simply aren't cost effective. A department would set up a RAID for file redundancy and/or speed. Since a software RAID doesn't really provide a speed benefit (you would be better keeping assets and separate drives instead on one large software RAID drive), that leaves redundancy. The problem is that a RAID protects you against hard drive failure ONLY. Not that that doesn't happen, but it's rare and hardly worth the time to implement when you consider that you need to have redundant storage ANYWAY in a non-RAID form. To explain, any decent recovery plan allows you to recover from a variety of events: accidentally deleting a file, directory error, electrical surge and so on. A RAID protects you from none of these so therefore you need a non-RAID solution. Once you have a non-RAID solution in place, why go to the expense/trouble of a RAID solution?

All that said, I LOVE my Burly (I have 3 5-Bays and single bay for the laptop). I use hard drives like giant floppies!

Mike

[Harm Millaard]

Jordan,

The problem is your budget. That limits you to external cases with crappy controllers. For less money you can get the storage into your case or you spend quite a bit more by getting a good raid controller (Areca ARC is my favorite) with eSATA connectors and build it yourself. Preferably look at a SAS box with a good backplane and hot-swappable bays, but be prepared to at least double your budget.

[Stanley Law]

This is me:

RocketRaid 3520 RAID Card + BBU
Newegg.com - HighPoint RocketRAID 3520 SATA II RAID Controller with Intel 2nd Generation PCI-Express I/O Processor - Controllers / RAID Cards

iStarUSA SATA Enclosures.
Newegg.com - iStarUSA BPU-340SATA Aluminum Black 3 to 4 Bay HDD Hot-Swappable SATA Enclosure - Server Accessories

I have 9 drives in my hackintosh.

1 for OS, and 8 for RAID 5. Running Western Digital 500GB drives. I have 3.2tb available in my array for editing.

Realistically, it's overkill. You can get away with:

SuperMicro 4x2.5" drives in a single 5.25" Bay.
Newegg.com - SUPERMICRO CSE-M14TB 2.5" mobile rack - Server Accessories

Fill it with 320gb 7200 RPM Laptop drives and use a RAID controller with its own parity calculation offload processor.

-------
Generally speaking, you only need fast storage on working files. Everything else should be stuffed onto nearline storage, ie tape, external HDs, offline HDs, DVDRs,